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Back to school is the perfect time to pose this two-pronged trick question for Ontario’s three party leaders:

“Why do you want — and deserve — to be premier?”

The question tests for clarity and authenticity. Politicians typically fail when they lapse, reflexively, into tired bromides or perennial clichés.

To date, none of the three rivals has come up with a persuasive answer that resonates with voters. Time to hunker down on their homework.

As MPPs return from their summer break (and a few inconclusive byelections), can any of the leaders penetrate the political fog with a compelling new pitch? A weekend opinion poll suggests fresh elections would leave the minority legislature unchanged, so how to break the logjam?

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After seven months as Liberal premier, Kathleen Wynne remains a personality in progress. Her distinguishing feature is a charming penchant for convening “conversations.”

Over time, Wynne has adroitly steered her Liberal minority away from Dalton McGuinty’s stark austerity mindset to a more politically palatable balancing act: tempering cutbacks with consultations. Reforms are coming to welfare and the minimum wage, but only after further discussions. Transit funding, economic planning and arbitration changes are contingent on lots more listening.

Her mediation skills were useful at finessing NDP budget demands. But the process feeds the perception that she has ceded the new policy agenda to the New Democrats, while following through on her predecessor’s legislative leftovers.

Wynne’s credo of consultations has bought her time, but not buy-in. At election time, voters are looking for a leader, not a convenor. Beset until now by inherited boondoggles, she must soon make her own mark, articulate her own agenda and persuade voters that her economic vision merits a majority government, beyond mere minority triangulation.

After four years as Tory leader, Tim Hudak remains stuck as Opposition leader — and even that job has him on the defensive. Facing recriminations after losing six of the last seven summertime byelections, Hudak must fend off a fresh leadership challenge at a policy conference later this month.

The Progressive Conservative brand is still strong, but Hudak’s personal appeal remains weak and his controversial policies untested and unpopular. Officially, the coming convention will be devoted to policy formulation after the release of a dozen odd discussion papers over the past year. But Hudak’s challenge goes beyond synthesizing debate — or anaesthetizing dissenters.

His real test will come with voters next year. The Tory leader learned from his bitter 2011 election defeat that it’s not enough to pounce on the mistakes of one’s opponent. Hudak must explain why he would make the best premier, as opposed to the best opposition leader.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is all smiles after overtaking the Tories in the byelection game — her party has scooped up three seats over the last two summers. But she knows past byelection performance is no indicator of future election behaviour.

Under pressure to pull the plug on the minority Liberals over the gas plant controversy, Horwath used her leverage to extract commendable budget concessions — on auto insurance, health care, job creation and financial oversight. She has been rewarded with steady gains, but not enough to emerge from perpetual third place.

If the NDP is to hold its new ground, Horwath must repurpose herself in the next campaign. Does she promise more of the same, perpetuating minority government by marketing herself as a Liberal watchdog? Will she repeat the spectacle of the 2011 election where she cast herself as a pale echo of a Tory tax fighter? Will she keep contorting herself into an anti-transit politician who insists commuters not pay a penny more?

Like the others, Horwath must level with voters: Why does she want to be premier, rather than merely wield the balance of power as leader of the third party? Why is she more deserving of governing than negotiating?

Three leaders, three sets of questions. By the time school’s out next summer, they’d best have their answers ready.

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